The Bulletin » Asides

John Endo Greenaway — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:42:48 +0000

It’s How You Play the Game
Mel Wakabayashi is our best-known Nikkei ice player. Not because he made the big times, although he did have a brief stint with the Red Wings of Detroit. Products of the southern Ontario junior ranks, Mel and his brother Herbie saw better opportunities some 12 years ago in Japan where a fledgling league was taking shape with the well-heeled backing of a few industrialists.
Mel was back in North America this past February as coach of the Japanese national team playing in the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. Here’s what the Sun’s James Lawton had to say in his February 19 column about Mel and his refreshing attitude towards winning or, in his case, losing a game:
“The Winter Olympics are chaos, power politics, one professional hockey team, millionaires, amateur skiers—the American superagent Mark McCormack has had four men patrolling the slopes, contracts at the ready—and a division of assorted commercial hustlers. But the games are also, thank God, still something to do with people like Mel Wakabayashi, coach of the Japanese hockey team.
“Wakabayashi, born in an internment camp in the interior of B.C., has seen 31 goals conceded. He moved to Japan 12 years ago when Father Bob Moran, a missionary priest, sent a message back to Canada for scout Peanuts O’Flaherty: ‘Get me some Japanese Canadian hockey players.’ Peanut’s was not exactly inundated with options and Wakabayashi got a job,
“Wakabayashi was moved east as a child and brought up in a small house by the railway track in East Chatham, Ont.
“He won a hockey scholarship to the University of Michigan, played briefly with Detroit Red Wings and had a baseball tryout with the Tigers. Yesterday, after the 6-0 beating by Canada, he was telling me ‘My boys are enjoying the Olympic in spite of the scores. The Olympics are not only about winning, are they? They are also about young athletes seeing new things and learning.’ After the game he got lost in the corridors of the Olympic Centre. You could pick him out easily. He had a smile on his face.”
The Bulletin, April 1980

John Endo Greenaway — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:40:44 +0000

Less “Soba”, More “Sake”

In a sober move to reduce the nation’s surplus rice, the Japanese cabinet recently decided to use more sake (rice brew) and rice at its official functions. And Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda, a soba (noodle) addict, approved his Agriculture Minister’s decision to drop soba for his lunch in favour of katsudon (rice with pork cutlet) to set an example in the “eat more rice” drive. Japan’s surplus rice is expected to reach some five million tons this summer.
The Bulletin, February 1978

John Endo Greenaway — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:40:04 +0000

Mt. Manzo Nagano overlooks Lake Owekino near the head of Rivers Inlet some 250 miles north of Vancouver. The peak, named for the first Japanese immigrant to Canada, was designated in 1977 by the federal government to commemorate the Japanese Canadian Centennial. This 6,600-ft. peak was conquered, for what is believed to be the first time, on July 25 by the Nagano clan.
The climbers—three great-grandsons, a brother-in-law, and a friend—first had to take a float plane from Port Hardy to Lake Owekino, cross canyons to the mountain base through heavy undergrowth, then make the arduous climb to Mt. Nagano’s peak, there to implant a flag of Canada and leave a plaque and family crest. The journey took five days to complete.
Lincoln Beppu of Seattle, who had fished the famed Rivers Inlet area, provided the environmental data. Members of the party were James and Stephen Nagano, sons of Dr. Rev. Paul M. Nagano of Seattle; David Nagano, son of Mr. & Mrs. Jack Nagano of Los Angeles, and their son-in-law Bob Drescher of Oxnard, Ca., and R.J. Secor of Pasadena, Ca.
The Bulletin, September 1979

John Endo Greenaway — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:14:20 +0000

A TEST-TUBE Baby? In Ten Years?
Many scientists in genetics are predicting in as short as ten years time, a woman will be able to select a baby of suitable characteristics, both physically and mentally, with or without sex. Some noteworthy developments have been achieved in the field of genetics over the last decade. It makes everyone very concerned about his future. Dr Suzuki, professor and researcher at UBC and well-known authority in the field of genetics, will be speaking at the Nisei’s February house meeting on February 26th. The place has not been decided. Those interested to attend, please phone Rev. Mitsui.
The Bulletin, January 1967

John Endo Greenaway — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:05:16 +0000

“We had a sense of mission in the sense that it was very important to do everything we could to sustain morale. We had to tell people: Look, in spite of all these terrible things that have happened to you, stand on your own feet. Look within yourself to your own strength and self-respect and your own sense of dignity.”
Tommy Shoyama
from the Langham tape collection